 The Pagan Credo |
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History of the Pagan CredoWhen the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria first imploded in Britain in 1988 Chris Bray of The Sorcerer's Apprentice Bookshop already had long-standing working relationships and/or correspondence with many leaders within esoteric fields world-wide. At that time he also had a very good relationship with the media who, up till then, had been fair and intelligent in their reporting of the new religion of paganism. When the fundies began accusing us of killing, microwaving and then eating babies all that changed. The idea for the Pagan Credo came from Stuart Farrar who was working with Chris on pagan anti-defamation. It was an attempt to distil an overall philosophy of paganism for public consumption which pagans world-wide could use to counter the lies and disinformation being given out by fundamentalists and leading edge social workers who wanted the Satanic Ritual Abuse Myth to drive a new child-scare industry. During this period, before the publication of the Pagan Credo, journalists and the authorities actually relied on information about paganism and witchcraft foisted on them by our sectarian enemies which made us out to be monsters. Stuart and Janet Farrar.were perhaps the best known representatives of the burgeoning Wicca at that time. Stuart, a British journalist, had become a pagan after visiting Alex Sanders (the founder of what later became known as Alexandrian Witchcraft which was itself based on the work of Gerald Gardner with an admixture of Solomonic magic). This resulted in Stuart writing a famous book with Sanders titled "What Witches Do" in 1971. Stuart later went on to become a prime mover in the development of Wicca amplyfing and expanding Gerald Gardner's Wicca philosophy in two seminal books, 'Eight Sabbats for Witches' (1981) which laid out a yearly ceremonial regime for pagans, and 'The Witch's Way (1984) a book aimed at the history, development and tenets of paganism. These two were published together in an omnibus edition in 1987 under the title 'A Witches Bible' an incongruous title which Stuart said was forced onto him by his publishers. In the second edition it was retitled 'A Witches Bible, The Complete Witches' Handbook' and it sold well on both sides of the Atlantic. His writings, particularly the latter, has probably influenced the thinking and religious observance of the majority of Wiccans in the world today. Stuart and Janet enthusiastically joined the project, as did a number of other leading pagans, and Chris worked on the wording with him. Stuart and Chris wrote the first draft of the Pagan Credo and submitted it for discussion to the pagan community. It went around a good few leading pagans and groups but only minor alterations were necessary, mainly to give it the widest possible scope. It was first published in April 1990 and distributed free, singly and in bulk copies to shops and organisations by the SAFF. The Pagan Credo formalised what every pagan already knew but it coalesced it all into a structured framework understandable by outsiders. It came into its own countless number of times when journalists and researchers, primed by the black propaganda of the fundamentalists, demanded to know exactly what Witches believed in and why they worked their rites. The Pagan Credo has contributed greatly to diminishing the fundies' lies about paganism at crucial times and has therefore been a success in preserving freedom of belief and action for all religious minorities, not just paganism.
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